Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image capturing apparatus having a function of performing authentication on an object and a photographer.
Description of the Related Art
Some recent image capturing apparatuses such as digital cameras have functions of performing authentication on specific objects, including a face recognition function and a face dictionary function. The face recognition function, which is for identifying a face area of a person from a captured image, is applied to functions including a function of determining whether a person is included in an object and a function of automatically focusing on a person, and is used for enabling a photographer to comfortably perform shooting. The face dictionary function is for identifying a person by extracting a feature amount of a person's face recognized with the face recognition function and comparing the extracted feature amount with a feature amount of a pre-registered person, and is applied to organization of image data after shooting and a search for the image data.
As a technique applying these functions, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-290260 recites a technique using a sub-camera for shooting an object located on the photographer side, by which the photographer in an image that is shot by the sub-camera is recognized and a camera setting is automatically switched in accordance with a change of the photographer.
For example, if a camera equipped with the face dictionary function is shared by a plurality of users, even a photographer who is a stranger will be authenticated as a specific object if this photographer is registered in the face dictionary. Moreover, if there is a photographer having a similar feature amount of the face, it is possible that this photographer will be misidentified as a completely unknown person.
Furthermore, although an appropriate shooting environment can be provided for each photographer with the technique recited in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-290260, this technique is not useful for organization or selection of image data after shooting.